2016 (11) TMI 577 - CESTAT MUMBAI

2016 (11) TMI 577 - CESTAT MUMBAI - TMI - Levy of tax - manufacture of certain parts and accessories in the said workshop which are used for mining machines - N/N. 182/87 dated 10/07/1987 as amended by Notification 234/1988 and 63/1995 - workshop not situated within the precincts of the mines - Held that: - the workshop is not within the mining area but situated adjacent to the mining area. However, workshop belongs to the same company which is exclusively engaged in mining of coal. It is also n .....

Excise duty exempted - appeal allowed - decided in favor of appellant. - Appeal Nos. E/2319/1997 & E/141/1998 - Order No.A/93223-93224/16/EB - Dated:- 14-10-2016 - Shri Ramesh Nair, Member (Judicial) And Shri C J Mathew, Member (Technical) None for the appellant Shri Sanjay Hasija, Superintendent (AR) for the respondent ORDER Per Ramesh Nair The facts of the case are that the appellant is engaged in mining of coal. The appellant have various mining areas and they have workshop adjacent to one mi .....

efore, the appellant is before us. 2. None appeared on behalf of the appellant. 3. Shri Sanjay Hasija, Learned Superintendent (AR) appearing on behalf of the Revenue reiterates the findings of the impugned order. He further submits that the workshop where the parts of the mining machines are manufactured is not located within the mining area. Therefore, the goods manufactured in the workshop which is outside the precincts of the mining area are not eligible for exemption. Therefore, the adjudica .....

he case of South Eastern Coal Fields Ltd. v. Commissioner of Customs & Central Excise 2006 (200) ELT 357 (SC) has considered this issue and passed the following order. 10. In our opinion, this appeal deserves to be allowed. As already stated above, the exemption under Notification No. 63/95-C.E., dated 16-3-1995 exempted all goods manufactured in a mine from excise duty. The Explanation to the exemption notification states that mine has the meaning assigned to it in Section 2(j) of the Mines .....

l for the assessee on an earlier order of the Tribunal in Central Coalfields Ltd. v. CCE, Jamshedpur dated 16-9-1997, in which it was held that the word precincts cannot be restricted to an area of four Kms. In that case the Tribunal held that the workshop in question was situated within the precincts of the mines to which it was catering, even though it was situated at a distance of 50 Kms. from the said mine. 13. In the present case the Tribunal rejected the assessee s claim for exemption on t .....

reference to the Factories Act itself was wholly irrelevant and we fail to see what the Factories Act has to do with the present case. The present case is covered by the Central Excise Act and has nothing to do with the Factories Act. Hence the view taken by the Tribunal is, with due respect to it, clearly erroneous. 15. It has to be considered in the present case whether the workshop in question is said to be a workshop within the precincts of a mine. 16. The word precincts is not a word of cle .....

the Advanced Law Lexicon, 3rd Edition, by P. Ramanatha Aiyar, the word precinct has been shown to have several meanings including a space enclosed by walls or other boundaries. 19. In Black s Law Dictionary, 7th Edition, the word precinct is defined as follows : A geographical unit of government, such as an election district, a police district, or a judicial district. 20. From a perusal of the above definitions, it appears that the word precincts does not have a single meaning, rather it has se .....